Free Web NovelThe biggest reason humanity lost to the monsters.
It’s that their greatest weapon—analysis—doesn’t work on them.
But in some corners, people whispered a different theory.
Awakened.
Especially the strongest among them—maybe they understood the truth of the Rift better than we ever did.
Lee Haeng-taek opened his mouth.
From his parted lips came a strange sound—something one would never expect from a human.
Kiiiii---
It was like the connecting tone of a mechanical communications device.
“......”
A pattern I don’t recognize. One I’ve never heard before.
I rushed forward and swung my axe at his neck.
Bwoong—
Amid the swelling shriek, my axe sliced through his throat.
But I felt nothing through my hands.
“Sunbae!”
At the very moment I heard Woo Min-hee’s sharp cry, and my axe cleaved through his neck—Lee Haeng-taek vanished, like magic.
Kiiiiiiiii---
All that remained was the unnatural, mechanical dial tone.
The short, violent burst of noise ended.
And the landscape changed.
Ash-gray earth. A background drenched in the gloom of dawn.
You could mistake it for the battlefield just now.
But it’s completely different.
This isn’t Earth—it’s somewhere beyond.
A world past the Rift.
That’s what it feels like.
In that infinite nightmare, I look up.
A Nemesis-type.
The one I defeated first—humanity’s mortal enemy.
“......”
For a moment, I doubted.
Was what I was seeing and experiencing truly real? Or was it some hallucination conjured by fear—or by a power I didn’t understand?
I clenched my hand.
Thankfully, I could still feel the axe in my grip.
Even in this ash-colored gloom, its sharp blade gleamed in silence.
I can kill it.
That certainty spread through the flames of hatred burning in my chest.
The massive being looked down at me.
I leapt.
I don’t know how I jumped.
All I know is that I crossed more than 10 meters in one leap and was swinging both axes toward the Nemesis-type’s head.
The moment the sharp blades struck its skull—the Nemesis-type vanished like magic.
“......”
I looked around.
The scenery was shifting.
It looked like someone’s memories.
There were omissions, but I felt no need to dwell on them.
Like a fragmented flashback, fleeting images flowed: the debauched days in a brothel called a “salon,” conflicts with parents, the phone screen slowly going dark with no one calling, the transition from an apartment to a villa, from a villa to a studio, the driver’s seat of a Benz that had long outlived its depreciation cycle—all flashing by in quick succession, some even looping.
Occasionally, strange things mixed in.
A family photo where the faces seemed cut out but still radiated warmth. A ceremonial sword. A planner filled with meticulous future plans, even though such things weren’t used anymore. A neatly pressed military uniform hanging on the wall.
When the scenery returned to the familiar ash-gray wasteland, it was after my thoughts had settled.
The illusion once again took on the form of the wretched man named Lee Haeng-taek.
“Can you see it clearly?”
He asked.
“......Where is this place?”
Lee Haeng-taek smiled faintly.
“Who knows. I don’t either.”
Maybe that’s the most fitting answer.
At least one thing is certain.
The person—or monster—in front of me wants to talk.
In other words, it wants communication.
*
We walked side by side through a city street I didn’t recognize.
Filthy and chaotic, but filled with young people, brimming with life.
Like an AI-generated image, all the storefront signs were blurred, making it hard to tell where we were—but I spotted a subway sign that still had its form.
It looked like Bupyeong.
Decades ago, back when this country was still young and overflowing with energy.
“I was completely ignored, but... I was a pretty good student, you know.”
Lee Haeng-taek had transformed into a stereotypical nerdy high schooler with glasses.
“I got a scholarship to Y University. Not full, but half off tuition for freshman and sophomore year—though I dropped out.”
For a moment, a test result sheet the size of a transcript flashed before us and vanished.
I hadn’t taken the Korean SAT, so I couldn’t tell what the numbers meant—but there were plenty of 1s in the grade column.
“If I’d just stayed in school—what might’ve happened? Well, even if my major wasn’t great, back then just having the university name got you in anywhere. I probably would've gotten into a top company. Maybe gotten married. If both of us worked, we might’ve done better than that bastard. Back then, Seoul apartments were dirt cheap. Right? I’d say that’s at least a billion won difference in assets.”
He turned his head.
A woman stood by the roadside.
A neatly arranged scarf. A beige half-coat that looked too thin for the weather. Hair curled with soft highlights down to her shoulders.
Her face was blurred like all the other passersby, but from the way Lee Haeng-taek looked at her, it was easy to tell what she meant to him.
“Even someone like me had a girl he liked.”
I didn’t need to ask how that ended.
More than that—I felt bored.
I don’t hate listening to others, but I have a strong dislike for getting too deep into their stories.
Reply-to-view ratio: 1:3.
Just enough interest, just enough disinterest.
“So, what happened?”
Even though I knew how it would end, I asked to hurry this monologue along.
Lee Haeng-taek smiled bitterly.
“I don’t know what happened. I heard she got into a big ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ company. That’s all. Around that time, I changed my number. Only gave it to a few close people. Didn’t give it to anyone else.”
In the end, a wise decision.
Because the landscape around us—twenty years in the past—vanished completely, and the ash-colored earth appeared again before us.
“Funny thing is, when I changed my number, those relationships I thought would at least survive in form just vanished like a lie.”
“What did you expect? Of course they’d disappear when you change your number.”
“No, but... I thought someone would try to contact me!”
He turned to me, almost pleading.
“I thought at least one person—just one of the few I gave my number to—would try to track me down and call me!”
I looked up at the sky.
No response. No reaction.
We have only one problem to solve between us anyway.
I picked up my axe.
Lee Haeng-taek sighed, having grasped my meaning.
“You’ll be different, huh?”
I turned my head.
Lee Haeng-taek now stood with his spear.
And—perhaps only possible in an illusion—his form overlapped and flickered with that of a Nemesis-type.
“Right? Even if you changed your number, other people would go all out to find you and reach out again, wouldn’t they?”
“...I’ve never changed my number. But that doesn’t mean I get a lot of calls.”
“Why? You’re the Professor, aren’t you? Even if you’re past your prime, weren’t you Korea’s top hunter?”
I stared at him.
“Is that what you really believed?”
Lee Haeng-taek fell silent, and his face flushed red.
Well, he probably knew deep down.
We’re both old enough to know everything that matters.
Old enough to make our own interpretations, even if we don’t want to understand.
Even the most clueless idiot wouldn’t imagine I’ve had it easy.
Especially not someone who heard people call me a general in Jeju.
“Professor!”
Lee Haeng-taek challenged me again.
I faced him silently.
CHANG-KANG!
The second clash.
Not much had changed.
But—
Bwoong—
A variable appeared.
At times, Lee Haeng-taek’s body transformed into that of a Nemesis-type, unleashing attacks beyond human scale.
A leg as thick as a utility pole swung toward me. I quickly ducked and dodged.
The moment I avoided the blow, the Nemesis-type’s arm vanished—and human-shaped Lee Haeng-taek lunged at me with his spear.
CHANG-KANG!
Sparks flew as spear and axe collided, each of us testing the other's strength.
“Professor!”
He bared his teeth.
But his expression looked more delighted than hateful.
BOOM!
A sudden shockwave.
But unlike in reality, it didn’t affect my organs or nerves.
Instead, objects around us rose into the air.
Blades, spears—even axes—with no context to their origin floated above.
Lee Haeng-taek waved his hand, and they all rushed toward me at once.
CHANG-KANG!
Shuuk—
CHANG!
Dodging, deflecting, and gambling with my life.
I evaded the barrage with skills honed over a lifetime.
BOOM!
The second shockwave.
Lee Haeng-taek transformed again into a Nemesis-type.
I looked up—had to tilt my head all the way back to see his skull—then dashed to the side.
The next moment, his massive forelimb slammed into where I had just been, shaking the earth.
I climbed one of his other legs, the one grounded.
The Nemesis-type thrashed, trying to shake me off—but like all monsters, he couldn't escape his own bulk.
I executed a perfectly simulated direct-body climb and reached his head.
There it is.
That’s the spot.
Just as I rushed toward it—
The third shockwave rang out. freewёbnoνel.com
It was Lee Haeng-taek again.
No—it was different.
The face changed.
“...You’re...”
The figure now had the face of Jeong Dae-kyung.
He still wore Haeng-taek’s battle gear and held his spear—but that refined, noble atmosphere, with a faint gleam of petty calculation and cunning—that aura belonged to Jeong Dae-kyung alone.
Jeong Dae-kyung grinned.
In that moment, his outfit turned into a military uniform, and the spear disappeared.
He rushed at me.
THUD!
A strong blow struck my face.
“......”
An impact with no apparent cause.
The moment I moved—his fist had already hit me.
Jeong Dae-kyung moved again.
CRACK!
“Keugh!”
His knee slammed into my gut.
Another hit without logical sequence.
A strike with absolute certainty—once he decided to hit, it landed.
“......”
I wiped the blood from my lips and checked my condition.
The pain was real.
The damage to my body seemed real, too.
Jeong Dae-kyung’s figure shifted slightly.
THUD!
Another blow.
My vision blurred.
But strangely, as my consciousness dimmed, my sense of curiosity grew stronger.
What’s the problem here?
Trying to explain Rift-related phenomena is usually pointless—but we’ve killed monsters and closed Rifts.
We don’t understand them, but we’ve defeated them.
That means they can’t kill us easily either.
It implies they require some kind of sequence.
Jeong Dae-kyung’s form flickered again.
THUD!
Another hit.
“Keugh!”
A blow so strong it almost made me gag struck my abdomen.
The Jeong Dae-kyung who struck me now stood a distance away, looking down on me with a cold face.
“......”
I think I get it now.
How this unpleasant hallucination is playing out.
I put down my axe and raised my fists.
A fighting stance.
A flicker of surprise crossed Jeong Dae-kyung’s eyes.
His figure vanished.
THUD!
A punch landed on my face.
But—
CRACK—
My fist also landed on his.
“......”
Not a miracle.
A solution found through consistent logic.
If this strange illusion is a world born from Lee Haeng-taek’s unstable psyche—then Jeong Dae-kyung, too, is part of him.
Jeong Dae-kyung was the embodiment of inferiority in Haeng-taek’s life—but also a symbol of fear.
Haeng-taek had once calmly told me that he fought Jeong Dae-kyung and was beaten miserably and driven off.
This Jeong Dae-kyung is that fear—his overwhelming strength that Haeng-taek could never overcome.
But I’m not Haeng-taek.
I swung a fist.
THUD!
Jeong Dae-kyung’s head snapped to the side.
I am Jang Ki-young’s student.
I find hand-to-hand combat inefficient and distasteful—but I’ve been trained enough.
THUD!
At the very least, I can take down a tough guy who trains hard.
THUD!
A series of strikes staggered Jeong Dae-kyung—and he vanished like smoke.
“......”
I waited calmly for what came next.
Where Jeong Dae-kyung had vanished—another man appeared.
Lee Haeng-taek.
The version I knew. Old, shabby, with a gunshot wound in his abdomen, dying.
“Hahaha!”
He laughed toward me.
“Professor!”
“......”
“You really are the Professor! Beating the crap out of that smug bastard like that! You’re nothing like trash like me! Huh? You’re a different breed! A whole different seed!”
His voice—part resignation, part hysteria—shouted at me.
I stared quietly and picked my axe up from the ground.
“You’re strong enough yourself, aren’t you?”
I asked, staring at him.
More precisely—at the wound in his abdomen.
Yes.
When he got shot in the gut beyond the Rift, Lee Haeng-taek should’ve died there.
He says he rushed back through the Rift—but it was a gut wound.
Even if it missed a vital organ, it wouldn’t matter.
It was a fatal wound.
Especially in the quiet, infinite world of the Rift—where there’s no one to care for you, no one to treat you.
“How did you survive alone in there?”
At least for me, it would’ve been impossible.
I said it honestly.
“It would’ve been impossible for me.”
If my teammates hadn’t come to rescue me, I would've ended up as just another mummy in the Rift, my limbs shattered.
I hadn’t given up on life—but I also hadn’t tried that hard to fix the situation.
I just accepted it.
The way life on this planet tends to meet its end.
In that sense, Lee Haeng-taek did something I couldn’t.
Whatever he is now—he achieved a miracle in a similar situation that I never could.
“......”
Lee Haeng-taek changed.
He turned into a monster.
A Nemesis-type.
No, not quite.
Similar to the one I killed—but subtly different, and therefore entirely a different creature.
The monster-shaped man spoke to me.
“We’re connected now.”
Unmistakably in Lee Haeng-taek’s voice.
“Or maybe... call it taxidermied.”
The scene changed.
Jeong Dae-kyung and some porters carrying gear were hurrying along inside the Rift.
“Hurry up! What are you dragging your feet for? You’re all ten years younger than me—move like it!”
Suddenly, the dying Lee Haeng-taek appeared in front of them.
Jeong Dae-kyung’s face stiffened.
“What the hell? You? What happened?”
Lee Haeng-taek charged at him and embraced him.
A flustered Jeong Dae-kyung tried his best to shake him off.
As Jeong Dae-kyung’s brutish hands pushed against Haeng-taek’s face—a soundless light engulfed them, and eventually everything else.
When the light faded, only one man remained.
Lee Haeng-taek.
The man who would later be referred to as Jeong Dae-kyung’s hidden Alpha Awakened.
He turned to face me—the observer.
And held out his hand.
I looked into his eyes.
In those wrinkled, battle-worn eyes, full of regret—there was no malice.
A single conclusion reached out to me.
So many thoughts flashed through my mind.
Most of my rationality screamed denial—but I, Park Gyu, had always been a curious child.
Curiosity is the root of inquiry.
People say the Rift and monsters are incomprehensible.
But there’s no such thing as "absolute" in this world.
Some say Alpha Awakened may be closer to the true nature of the Rift than we are.
Above all—there’s still a tangled mass of incomprehensible threads sleeping in my mind.
I feel the flame of hatred burning in my chest.
And it hits me—maybe that fire doesn’t only burn hatred.
“......”
I took his hand.
